


The Force of a Dying Star

by midnightflame



Series: Homecoming [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Implied long-standing relationship, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Sacrifice, this is not the tragedy it seems to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 13:27:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9237110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Love manifests itself in a variety ways. Shiro hopes Keith comes to realize this one day.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I fell back into this though I have had this idea in my head for months now. It may very well become a string of pieces following a storyline I have in mind. . .that started with the other two pieces I wrote (not sequentially, just as part of a series). As before though, I understand this pairing has its controversy but I always write them as consenting adults. This piece does contain some sexual activity though not overly explicit as the warnings have indicated. That said, hope you enjoy!

“No, no, _no_ ,” Keith hisses, harsh and everything but the cool and collected Shiro really wishes he could have been at this moment. Not that he can blame him, all things taken into account, but since when had situational awareness ever really stopped anyone from wishing for something different. . .

Or maybe it’s because of that precise thing – just how terribly aware he is of everything going on around them – that he does find himself wanting something more. Something different, something so very not this, but _this_ is where they are and there is nothing Shiro can do to change that very simple fact.

They are here. 

“You don’t get to go deciding shit, Shiro, just because you happen to be the one here with me. That’s not how this works!”

“This is not the time to be arguing with me over orders, Keith!” Shiro growls, dipping low to avoid an incoming sword thrust. Seconds later, there’s a body sprawled on the ground before him, disarmed and unconscious, and yet he feels like he’s accomplished nothing. Like putting a chip in a boulder when it’s the mountain sitting there before them, imposing and insurmountable. 

Dancing to the side several steps, his back hits against Keith, who lets out a low grunt, indicating he is not at all open to a ban on countering Shiro’s directives. It’s a sound that has Shiro glancing over his shoulder, eyes narrowing in warning. “Our priority is getting you back to Red before the Galra can get there.”

“Our priority should be getting out of this alive! _Both_ of us,” Keith cries out, heated, as he darts forward, slicing across the chest of another soldier. He narrowly misses the dying retort, a laser shot charring the side of his helmet, before the Galran soldier drops from his knees to a head-first dive into the reddened clay at his feet. Seconds later, he’s spinning on his heel, thrusting sword point into another attacker. 

But Keith does draw attention to a rather important fact – they’re only getting to the Red Lion if they get out of here first, and getting out of here is looking about as daunting as taking down a Galra warship with only a transport vessel. Shiro looks behind him, at the looming figure of the Black Lion, stationed just several hundred feet away. 

Patient and willing. Waiting for Shiro’s next move. 

Shiro feels his mouth pulling tight. There are options, as there always are in midst of battle, and most of them only ever make sense in the moment, always leave the distinct feeling that regret will be waiting in the dark and the depths to swallow someone in the aftermath. They’re the choices no one ever wants to have to make, all those things you wish you never had to do but somehow, inevitably, find yourself doing. 

Those same things that keep you up at night, months and years later, questioning everything and somehow nothing at all.

The light flares along Shiro’s right arm. “I’m getting you out of here.”

*****

“Sit still for a moment more, would you? I’m almost done.”

“You said that ten minutes ago.”

“Well, I thought I had been,” Shiro sighed, voice quiet and worn right through. “And then I just happened to find this on your side. . .”

By this, Keith imagined Shiro meant the still somewhat bleeding (really it was more of a dying trickle than anything else) and most certainly bruising gash sitting over his ribs. It was relatively small, comparatively speaking, and not something he had considered until Shiro had started fussing over it, like he had all the other wounds Keith had sustained throughout the course of the day. 

When he had finished applying the salve (frugally, Keith had noted, and not without chagrin over that fact), Shiro set about pressing several gauze pads against it, which he then taped firmly in place. He tapped against Keith’s elbow, indicating he could let his arm down, his lips still twisted by dissatisfaction. 

“How does it feel?”

“Like everything else, it hurts,” Keith stated, point blank, and catching Shiro by surprise. “But I can deal with it. It’s not the worst hand I’ve been dealt.”

Shiro exhaled heavily, his gaze rising to meet Keith’s. “We’re running low on supplies though, so I wasn’t able to do much.”

“I’m not going to die from a few scratches.” 

Keith poked at Shiro’s shoulder, just above his prosthetic where his own skin was stained a rather magnificent blend of blue and purple. Just one of several splotches across his body. At the reminder, Shiro’s expression softened, lips parted for a quiet splash of laughter that did more to lift Keith’s mood than the care he had just received over the last half an hour. He leaned forward and set his forehead lightly against Shiro’s.

“Yeah. . .we’re going to be okay,” Shiro said, quietly, as Keith pressed their lips together, humming a soft sound of acknowledgement in response. 

The kiss was light, soothing, everything he knew Shiro needed in that moment. Keith shifted closer, letting his knees slide past Shiro’s hips and brace against the jut of rock Shiro had set himself up against. A hand found itself slipping up the back of Shiro’s neck, just as Shiro leaned into the kiss, a deeper consolatory effort than Keith had initiated but one he was more than happy to indulge. Shiro’s lips were rough, wind-scalded from endless hours of excursion around the planet they had landed (crashed, if Keith was being honest) on almost a week ago. Keith imagined his own lips couldn’t have been any better off, but there was something almost. . .exhilarating about that thought.

But, there was always something thrilling about finding yourself alive when every sliver of the circumstances around you was betting against it. 

“Keith. . .” 

His name was whispered heavily, Shiro’s voice thick with want too tightly restrained, with thoughts too dark and too deep for the moment, but that was also the thing about being left standing when the world had tried relentlessly to bring you to your knees. . . .it had a terrible way of luring ghosts from their graves.

Keith tipped his head back, let his eyes find Shiro’s once again. He said nothing, waiting patient though there was a swell of words rioting in his throat and a hand fisted over the top of Shiro’s thigh. There was a sigh, warm and burdened, as Shiro set his forehead against Keith’s shoulder. He rolled his head to the side, letting his lips run a line of kisses along the column of Keith’s neck and pausing just along the curve of his jaw. 

“Voltron. . .” Shiro began, as his fingers skated light along Keith’s lower back, making him arch involuntarily like a cat too used to teasing touches, always anticipating more. “If for some reason I don’t make it back. . .”

Everything went a starless black in Keith’s head, body frozen, his eyes wide. And just when he thought he might be lost, he felt Shiro’s lips moving against his skin, the words still slow in coming, still as heart-shearing.

“. . .take over, Keith. I want you to –“

“And what about what I want?!” 

He was shaking in Shiro’s lap, from his words to his fingers to the very core of all that he was. “I’m not taking over the team because there will never be any need for me to. You **are** coming back, Shiro. You. . .”

His mouth was on Shiro’s again, a desperate crushing force of a kiss that had him tasting blood seconds later. But it didn’t stop him, and Shiro didn’t try to either. Keith ran his tongue along Shiro’s lower lip, across the cut that oozed and reminded him that for all Shiro said, for every plan he had lined up – from A right down to Z – Shiro was still here with him right now. 

“. . you don’t get to leave me again,” Keith whispered, broken and everything he hadn’t wanted to be in this moment but couldn’t deny that he was. Because Shiro was still right here, still within his grip, and instead he was thinking of maybe’s that had no right to be considered even if there was a chance, there was always a chance. . .

“Keith. . .” Shiro murmured in a voice comforting and far too kind.

“Touch me. . .”

“ _Keith_. . .”

“Now, Shiro! Just. . .touch me. . . _something_. . .” Keith pleaded, his forehead pressed against Shiro’s, his eyes closed. The last thing he wanted to see was the alarm and all the subsequent concern that he had just heard in his name. “. . .you're here, after all."

There was a brush of fingertips against his lower back, hesitant at first but gaining confidence as they slipped up his spine, one vertebra at a time. Keith let go of a breath, trembling as it passed over his lips.

“We can’t go that far. . .” Shiro spoke, tone still swimming with caution, the fading hints of disapproval. 

“We don’t have to,” Keith cut him off. “Just don’t stop. . .”

He heard Shiro swallow, heard the shallow breathing that followed, and knew that all thoughts of tomorrow were gone. Keith canted his head, letting his mouth settle against Shiro’s, and waited for the relenting part of Shiro’s lips, giving him all the permission he needed. Shiro’s tongue slipped against his, just as his hands grounded firmly against Keith’s hips and tugged him closer. In the small space of the cave that had served as their base, the sound of Shiro’s heartbeat seemed impossibly loud, amplified by concessions made, by an aching need Keith knew they both shared.

More than just this moment, even if it was this moment precisely that would confirm all their fears, the hopes that rode against those fears, that solidified the foundation of all that they had become and everything Keith wished for them to be.

When Keith rolled his hips over Shiro’s thighs, ending with a solid press against his groin, he couldn’t help but smile, small and knowing, at the moan Shiro released. He dragged his teeth against Shiro’s lower lip, placed several fleeting kisses to his chin, grinding his hips again until Shiro was panting against his neck. Of all the ways Shiro could fall apart, Keith loved this one the best, when he was still claiming control of all that he was, knowing full well he was on the verge of buckling, and looking at Keith like the descent was well worth the hell waiting for them on the horizon.

Shiro leaned up into the next kiss, his right hand tangling in Keith’s hair, pressing against the back of his head as his lips parted and tongue ran against teeth, into the heat of Keith’s open mouth. This time, it was Keith who moaned, soft and just a bit jagged.

“ _Shiro_. . .”

Fingers fumbled with the zipper of Keith’s pants. He slid one arm down from its place around Shiro’s shoulders, nails grazing light and tempting down chest and stomach, resting only when they hit the edge of Shiro’s pants. Zipper only half-way parted, Shiro stilled entirely, muscles clenching in anticipation as Keith teased fingertips along the line of fabric, started sliding down the trail of fine hair that began at Shiro’s bellybutton and dived low and lower still.

Shiro let out a ragged breath and set his head against Keith’s chest. Lured quietly into momentary submission as palm pressed against the outline of his hardened cock. And Keith knew it was taking a fair amount of focused control not to rock those hips up, to ask for more out of his touch. Knew that because he knew Shiro and it was so often like this between them, Shiro just waiting for that one moment when he could let it all go.

“Don’t stop,” Keith whispered into Shiro’s ear. He watched as a shiver spiraled its way down Shiro's spine.

Permission granted. 

It was the shocked but satisfied gasp that had Shiro smiling as his left hand slid beneath the fabric of Keith’s pants, as fingers ran the length of Keith’s cock. Shiro’s lips were on his throat once more, and all Keith could do was writhe against that touch, beckoning more with every soft pant parting his lips, with every slow, shallow thrust of his hips. As a thumb rolled over the head of his erection, Keith whined quietly, pleased.

Seconds later, Shiro’s hand was wrapped steadfast around the shaft, giving one, two rough pumps along its length before stopping entirely. Just long enough for Keith to regain some portion of his better senses, just long enough to find retaliation in the way he unzipped Shiro’s pants with no further ceremony and took his cock in hand. When Shiro groaned, desire ratcheting higher, Keith nipped at the corner of his mouth.

It was all the incentive Shiro needed to claim Keith’s mouth, his hand once more gliding firmly up and down, up then down, over and over. Steadily, like there was nothing more to consider for this was all that there would be, all he could ever want, and time was as plentiful as the grains of sand that covered this planet’s surface in a fine gritty coating. 

Keith kept his rhythm just off pace from Shiro’s, because he knew that’s how he liked it at first. Starting off with disparate means only to slowly, slowly, slowly bring them all in line until at the end both of them were coming, hard and fast and with nothing but satisfaction flooding their veins. When Shiro came, it was with his lips light against Keith’s, hand slack against the back of his neck, and all the words he wanted to say just sitting there on his tongue, tasted but unspoken.

But Keith had never really needed to hear them. Not when all it took was but a touch.

*****

“Just get in there already!” Shiro growls out loudly.

Above him, Keith is wavering just outside the Black Lion’s cockpit, his face contorted with disapproval. 

Shiro darts forward again, cutting his way through three Galra soldiers, before turning to look back at Keith. His gaze shoots from Keith, still stubbornly refusing to get inside, to the Galran transport ship landing half a mile away, the remaining soldiers blockading him still, and finally settles on the Black Lion itself. Exhaling, Shiro bows his head and closes his eyes, brief but settled, as the light glows neon purple along his right arm once more. 

This planet had been ruthlessly deserted. Vegetation grew in odd outcroppings, the landscape looking like the earth itself had been battered and broken with rocks jutting out of its surface in large, sharp-pinnacled projections and a dead sort of purpled-red staining every bit of it. Waiting above though, Keith is a vibrant contrast, just toeing the edge of fury with all the life that explodes with it, enough so to make Shiro almost want to smile despite it all. 

At that, the Black Lion shakes itself, tipping Keith off balance and tumbling into its inner chamber. Before Keith can right himself, he’s been sealed inside. Shiro finally smiles up at him, wry and just a bit gutted. He can imagine the words coming out of Keith’s mouth in that moment, a thought that somehow softens his look. It’s not quite apologetic, but it is most certainly fond.

And he wonders if that in and of itself isn’t the greater cruelty of this moment. 

“Get him to Red. That’s an order!”

Even if it is, it’s not one Shiro can bring himself to fully regret.


End file.
